totchipanda

My costume had it's first wear out this past weekend, and well, it wasn't quite what I hoped it would be. I had months to finish it, so I was totally sewing pre-eyeleted tape to the front edges to lace it closed the night before I left. Yep. I had a pair of "moto pants" (basically leggings in a thick fabric with some seaming details) that were "good enough", as well as sueded boots (could only find my black ones; they were grey by the end of the 2nd day there was so much dust and dirt blowing around), so I just needed to finish the "coat" to have it be wearable/recognizable. But then Saturday exploded and it was cold and windy, so I wore my Jedi cloak all day and I didn't want people to stop me for photos anyway, so I have literally one photograph of it, which you can see at my blog. (I'm making the doofiest face. Graham McTavish is such a lovely man.)

The lacing gaped and pulled, I used a Victorian pattern for the bodice so I'm not convinced my boobs were in the right place for it, the "skirt" fell away from my body when it should have remained straight down the front (and if I understand the book below, the version of the costume I want to do doesn't even have a skirt on that piece), I think I need to line and weight the petals... Hard to say. As I said, it was cold and windy, and my cloak and jacket were both poly, and they clung to each other something fierce. Having the right pants made might help too, the moto pants are pretty staticky too. I probably won't wear it again until September, I will have a long time to figure this out.

I picked up the Cloak and Daggers book at the con, hoping it would have detailed costume pictures. I'd seen a couple of scans that suggested it would. It had not nearly as many as I was hoping (I would enjoy an entire book the same size on Mirkwood costumes alone), and at the same time, far more than I was hoping it would. It wasn't just costumes too, it was set dressings, weapons, and props. Lovely resource and well worth the $50 it cost me. I hope I can pick up other books soon :) (I also dropped my money on the floor, and when I picked it up one of the ladies, who had the most lovely New Zealand accent, told me I could throw my money at her instead. I would love to! I want this book, please take my money!!)

The two best pages for Tauriel (for me) was the mention that her cloak is raw silk (me: HA! I KNEW IT!!! Go me for learning enough to recognize raw silk on sight :)) and the page that contains a front view of just her undershirt on a mannequin. I knew she had one, it's quite visible in a couple of scenes, but I ran out of time to make one (and I so need one), so now being able to see it, even only half of it, is WONDERFUL. I'm going to experiment with wearing a corset underneath as the base layer and see if that helps the gaping and pulling and also puuting my boobs where they belong. Gosh I can't wait to get started on that undershirt though :) I didn't know how long it needed to be, and now I do. Yay!

This costume makes no darn sense >:C

( In which I spend way too much time thinking about this. )

I really have been thinking about approaching this from a practicality point of view. Like, if some of the outfits do have removable skirts, the question becomes less why and more HOW? I would feel most comfortable lacing one onto the bodice, but there could be arguments for them being stitched in loosely too. Either one I feel is impractical. Threads and laces can break, and your enemy will not wait for you to remove the offending loose fabric/ties to get back to the ass-kicking.

My brother and I saw the third Hobbit movie again on Friday, and I kind of want to go a third time? I have decided that I am going to cosplay Tauriel probably this year. I didn't really know how I felt about her as a character for this past year and a bit. I came to realize yesterday that some of the best things about her are that she is one of the only female characters in the entire movie series (not strictly canon), and we get to see her being talented at what she does, which is being bad-ass, all while still being feminine, AND (in my mind, most importantly):

She gets to wear sensible shoes.

So tired of movies with female characters who wear shoes with a heel. It's so impractical. Even in Sucker Punch, I remember noticing that in the first fantasy sequence, Baby wore ridiculously tall heels, and then in some of the fight-parts, the stunt person was clearly wearing flats, to go back to the main actress wearing heels. Let's face it, most heels just aren't well-suited to nancing about the mountains.